A 24-hour extreme test of endurance

Saturday

Aug 25, 2012 at 9:33 PM

The physical gauntlet was enough to make onlookers cringe, but to participants, the mental struggle was what had to be overcome.

By Christopher BaldwinCorrespondent

The physical gauntlet was enough to make onlookers cringe, but to participants, the mental struggle was what had to be overcome."10 percent of it is physical and 90 percent is mental," said Joe Lewis, a firefighter with Gainesville Fire Rescue. "If you can shut your mind off, if you can keep yourself from thinking that you're not going to able to do it, anybody can do this."GORUCK, a company that makes military-grade gear, held a 24-hour endurance challenge around Gainesville that began around 8 p.m. on Friday and continued until about 8 p.m. on Saturday.The GORUCK challenge, which has existed since 2010, simulates Special Operations training in order to test their gear, raise money for the Green Beret Foundation and provide participants with an opportunity to challenge themselves while learning leadership and teamwork, according to Justin, a cadre — or instructor — for GORUCK who wouldn't give his last name because he is an active noncommissioned officer with Naval Special Warfare.The challenge is an all-natural endurance challenge that requires participants to carry a rucksack filled with bricks — weighing 35-45 pounds depending on the participant's weight, organizers said — at all times while completing challenges such as miles of marching or jogging and completing mission objectives in an all-natural environment.In order to participate, challengers had to pay a $100 fee, which pays for the cadres' travel and instruction and goes toward fundraising for the Green Beret Foundation to support wounded soldiers and the families of soldiers killed in action, Justin said.A traditional GORUCK challenge is usually 12 hours, but when Gainesville firefighters were part of another challenge in Tampa, the idea of having a 24-hour challenge was suggested, Lewis said. The cadres thought it was be a good idea and moved forward with it.Along with the extended hours came new challenges for participants such as sleep deprivation, decreased water and food rations, and increased physical fatigue, Lewis said.Fifty-five people, including 10 Gainesville Fire Rescue firefighters as well as Marion County firefighters, took part in the challenge. By 1 p.m., however, only 31 remained, and of the 10 Gainesville Fire Rescue participants, only five.The challenge began at Westside Park at about 8 p.m. Friday with cadres giving an introduction and instruction for the challenge regarding rules, health and safety.Health is of particular concern for these challenges, and the cadres don't want people to push themselves too far out of pride, Justin said."That's great, but It's not smart," he said. "This is an event they've paid for, and — in the end — we want them to come away with a sense of satisfaction. And we don't want people walking away from here who are going to be injured for weeks, and we've had that in the past."Next, they moved to the baseball field for a grueling 2½-hour "welcome party" that involved physical training and teamwork activities such as the one-inch crawl, which had participants, broken into four groups, lay chest down on the ground while resting their shins on the shoulders of the person behind them. Then, they lifted themselves up by their arms to make a human-centipede-like unit that attempted to move forward in concert.The group lost two members in this first challenge, according to participants."People realize quickly ‘Whoa, this is not for me,' or ‘I maybe overestimated what my capabilities were,'?" Justin said. "You always have people who will opt-out right away, and it's better to do it sooner rather than later."The group then marched toward downtown Gainesville around 10:30 p.m. At midnight, the group marched to the Devil's Millhopper and by 6 a.m. had traveled to the 34th Street Wall.Next, the group headed to Lake Alice for a quick dip in the lake.At around 9 a.m., just past the 12-hour mark, the group took an extended break on the Depot Trail. After the break, focus shifted to mission-based challenges. The group was told to march to Sweetwater Branch, where an approximately 700-800-pound wet log awaited them as part of an extraction objective. Together, they floated and carried the log down the ankle-deep creek and over obstacles such as fallen trees and rocks.At this point, Joe Mueller, 23, an assistant cross-country coach at Buchholz High School and a former recon Marine who completed a previous GORUCK challenge, quit due to feeling ill. He chalked it up to not eating enough during the challenge."My buddies are over there, and it's really demoralizing watching them keep going," he said. "I feel like I'm letting them down — it's one less man."Once out of the creek, the group traveled with the log down the Gainesville/Hawthorne State Trail and, after a break, continued on the trail to an open area in Sweetwater Preserve.From there, the group marched to Loblolly Woods, where their objective was to reach and secure the "Landing Zone" by 8 p.m. and to await exfiltration, which in this case meant that the 31 remaining challengers could finally go home.For George Seemon and Timothy Donovan, of Gainesville, the community, camaraderie and encouragement among participants made their first GORUCK challenge a great experience."We had a girl that finished the first 12 hours, [but] she cramped up in hour six," Seemon said. "We carried her pack, and we carried her — and got her to the 12-hour point."